SCAC's last gasp is one for the history books

Centre could come away with
the last SCAC automatic bid before all seven football teams enter
playoff uncertainty. Centre athletics photo

Scan Division III’s 27
conference races. There’s no better mix, as we head into
Week 8, of top 25-worthy teams running neck-and-neck, or of
longtime powerhouses and new kids on the block, than in the
SCAC.

After a 4-6 season in which Rhodes, Millsaps and Centre got to
take out years of frustration, perennial conference champion
Trinity (Texas) is 6-0, and back in the rankings at No. 23. Five of
six opponents have scored in the single digits against the Tigers,
with Texas Lutheran managing 14 in a 29-point loss.

Clashes in San Antonio loom against Birmingham-Southern (Oct.
29), which is 5-1 and eligible for the SCAC automatic playoff bid
for the first time after four years of provisional status while
moving from Division I and restarting football. The Panthers hit
No. 24 nationally before last Saturday’s 45-20 loss to
Centre, a program that has had five seasons of seven or more wins
since 2001 but hasn’t played a postseason game. The Colonels
are now 5-0 and soon to crack the top 25.

Even Sewanee, which won three games the past three seasons, has
three wins already, and Millsaps is alive in the SCAC title chase
despite being just 4-3 overall.

“It’s definitely exciting,” says Dwayne
Hanberry, who started as the conference’s sports information
director in 1995 and has been its full-time commissioner since
2008. “It’s added an element to our race that we
haven’t had in quite some time … top to bottom, in
terms of quality play, the league is as strong as its been since
I’ve been here.”

Which makes it all the more disappointing that what could be the
best SCAC football season in years is set against the backdrop of
the schools going their separate ways after the season.

“It’s definitely a little bittersweet,” says
Hanberry, “because we know we’re losing five of our
seven football schools. It’s not something we wanted to
happen. It’s not something we’re looking forward to
happening. But it’s reality.”

Trinity and Austin remain in the Southern Collegiate Athletic
Conference, which will be a six-team conference for most sports.
But Colorado College dropped football after 2008, Southwestern
doesn’t sponsor it, and neither do new members University of
Dallas or Centenary, which switched
allegiances from the ASC to the SCAC in September.

That leaves the conference in good shape for all sports but
football and men’s lacrosse, Hanberry said. With just two
football-playing members – two short of the four core members
a conference needs to recruit football-only affliates to reach the
seven it needs to retain an automatic bid – tough times are
ahead on the gridiron.

“It’s disheartening that the conference is breaking
up,” said Andy Frye, in his 13th year as Centre’s
football coach. “Over 20 years, it has really developed into
a stronger conference.”

Trinity won 13 consecutive conference titles, from 1993 to 2005,
and went to the Stagg Bowl in 2002.

“That really helped raise the bar of the other
teams,” said Frye. “Because if you didn’t get
better, you were gonna get whopped by ’em.”

Because it had teams in Colorado, Indiana, Texas, Tennessee,
Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama at one point, the SCAC became the
only full D-III football conference where air travel was the norm.
There were some rugged bus trips as well, but the SCAC schools
embraced the travel and their high academic standing and sold that
unique mix to potential student-athletes.

“I think that was one thing that heightened the experience
of playing here,” Frye said. “The SCAC used that in
recruiting.”

The travel costs apparently became too much to bear. Though
football sends the biggest contingent on the road, it’s once
a week, and always on Saturdays. Other sports that play more often
and require more trips might have been more of a problem, and the
new SAA mentioned “contiguous states” and a
Friday-Saturday basketball schedule as
reasons for the move.

It could not, however, have come at a worse time.

The move will cost all seven teams access to an automatic
playoff bid in 2012 and for at least two more years after that. For
Birmingham-Southern, which endured a four-year wait to finally get
a shot at a conference title and the playoffs this season,
it’s a real kick in the teeth.

“Both sides are in that netherworld,” Hanberry said.
“Though we all agreed to keep our schedules intact for 2012,
there won’t be an AQ.”

The move also breaks up what had nearly been a fully conferenced
D-III (I wrote about the
potential trickle-down effects during the summer, and not much
has changed). Among this season’s six independents, former
SCAC member DePauw
is headed to the NCAC, Chapman is headed to the SCIAC, LaGrange
is headed to the USAC and Macalester is comfortably aligned with
the MIAC, playing football as an independent but having plenty of
Minnesota schools available and willing to fill out their schedule.
Only Wesley and Huntingdon foray into the future without a
conference alignment planned.

“It didn’t happen at the most opportune time,”
Hanberry admits. “We came in at the back end. There some
schools sitting out there who had shown interest over the years,
and had decided to go elsewhere.”

Hanberry says he aware of the travel rumblings from the SAA
schools, and the SCAC had been pursuing expansion and a split to a
divisional format when the other dominoes fell.

The SAA expects to find out whether Berry is interested in
starting football in the next week or so, says Jay Gardiner,
Oglethorpe’s AD and the new conference’s acting
commissioner. Hendrix plans to start football, and two new schools
would bring the SAA to seven. The conference would have to wait two
seasons from when the seventh school joins to qualify for an
automatic bid, and it would be quite a cycle before it’s as
strong a conference as the SCAC is now, but at least the
SAA’s long-term future would be secured. The same cannot be
said for the schools left in the lurch, Trinity and Austin.

Hanberry says he could have left to go with the SAA, but stayed
to rebuild the SCAC. He is candid about the near future for the
conference: It will be a six-team league in 2012, with two
football-playing members. Unless it can win an appeal with the
NCAA, it will lose its AQ, and then be treated like any new
conference starting from scratch: It would need four core
(all-sports) members playing football and at least seven total, and
would need to wait two seasons before being awarded an AQ.

The UAA is an academically prestigious all-sports conference
stretching from New York to Illinois to Georgia – similar to
the SCAC. For football, four schools – Chicago, Carnegie
Mellon, Wash. U. and Case Western Reserve compete as a conference
while Rochester, a member in other sports, competes in the Liberty
League. They do not have access to an automatic bid, but with
Trinity and Austin in the mix, they’d be close.

“If the UAA called us, we’d welcome that,”
Hanberry said. “If that meant playing football under their
umbrella, there are no egos involved here. We just want to do the
best thing for our student-athletes.”

The problem is even with Trinity and Austin joining the UAA
four, there’d be a two-year wait and need for a seventh
school to gain an AQ. The SCAC already has an AQ, but can’t
add the UAA four under its banner unless it had two core members to
join Trinity and Austin. That would, however, make an eight-team
conference.

“It’s almost a situation where we have to get our
own house in order first,” Hanberry said.

The SCAC sat down after the SAA news broke and examined its
future. To be able to recruit potential members, the conference had
to know what it wanted to be. Hanberry says the SCAC looked at
inviting Division II and NAIA schools, and looked at remaining a
high-travel, high-academics conference.

“I think the preference is to do our best to stay in line
with our academic mission,” he said. “But we
can’t invent D-III schools in our part of the country
… I don’t think we’re going to get to dictate
the terms [of what we do going forward] as much as some people
might think.”

Hanberry says the SCAC has not thrown in the towel on football.
But the conference also wouldn’t force new members to sponsor
the sport, nor would it try to hurry schools along so it can slap
together a conference in time to save its AQs in football and
men’s lacrosse.

“We’re not going to throw caution to the
wind,” he said.

The automatic qualifier is important to the remaining university
presidents, but not the driving force.

Hanberry, as you might guess, declined to name any schools who
are interested in SCAC membership. “Most of the people
we’re talking to are affiliated with someone else,” he
said.

But he did say this: The SCAC is primarily looking to add
schools that are already D-III. Beyond Centenary’s acceptance
of an offer to join, no invitations are on the table. Even with a
change in presidents, Colorado College does not seem interested in
reviving football. The short-term goal is to become an eight-team
conference, but 10 or 12 at some point is a possibility.

Also, Hanberry said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we
end up with a much tighter geographic footprint.”

In plain terms, it looks like the SCAC will not rush to redefine
itself. It might relax its standards a bit to add a core member,
but is still looking for a fit. I wouldn’t expect to see a
team poached from NAIA or D-II until after the D-III core is
solidified. And while maybe an ASC school or two will jump ship, I
don’t see Austin or Trinity going the other way.

The two football programs, however, have to do whatever is
necessary to ensure they can schedule at least nine games each and
have access to an AQ. They would have to consider affiliate invites
from the ASC, but Austin just left that conference in 2006. Wesley
and Huntingdon would likely be open to scheduling games. Huntingdon
could be a desirable new member for the SCAC or SAA (attempts to
reach Trinity and Huntingdon were unsuccessful).

All seven current SCAC football programs will be dumped into
Pool B as soon as next season. With the four UAA schools, Wesley
and Huntingdon, that still makes only 13, which means we might not
see an increase in Pool B bids. But even if, say, the Wolverines
wrapped up the Pool B bid easily, the former SCAC teams would be
eligible for at-large bids. Still, that’s not as advantageous
as having one guaranteed to the champion of your group of
seven.

As murky as the future appears, the present in the SCAC is still
bright.

“You really don’t think ‘Gosh, this is the
last time the SCAC is going to have an AQ,” says Frye, whose
team hosts Sewanee on Saturday. “Right now we all have our
heads down trying to win this week.”

This season, Frye knows exactly what he’s chasing. Even if
Centre loses one of its next four games, it can get enough help to
win the SCAC and get in. He’s competing against six teams,
not every playoff-worthy one in D-III.

And that alone is why the SAA’s attempt to help its
student-athletes and its school’s bottom lines might end up
robbing them of a priceless experience.

Rivalry spotlight
I gave this some more thought, and realized I haven't been clearly
articulating or researching what would most enlighten Around the
Nation's readers.

That will give us three lists of rivalry games. The NCAA
D-III record book has a list of 52 trophy games on Page 39.
Just above that are the 15 most-played rivalries in D-III –
everyone at 110 games or more. The longest, as most of us know, at
125 games, is Amherst-Williams, which embodies everything we
consider to be great about a rivalry. The second most-played game,
Albion-Kalamazoo at 124, has literally never been mentioned to me
as a standout game in 12 seasons writing this column.

Length alone does not make a great rivalry. Neither does the
presence of a trophy, or a name for the game.

Rivalries are the games that matter more than others. No matter
how much your coach tries to tell you it's just another game, it
isn't. Because that week alumni stop by practice. Professors who
never show an interest in athletics ask you if you're going to win.
Ex-players who skipped homecoming tell you they wouldn't miss this
game for the world.

I wrote after attending the 2010 Secretaries' Cup game at Coast
Guard that I didn't want to rank D-III's rivalries anymore. I need
to rank the top 25, and the conferences, and make the hard
decisions that give those things credibility. But with a rivalry
game, it's not important whether it's fourth-best or sixth-best.
It's only important that we demonstrate to those who have no idea
what it's like what in fact goes on.

So I turn to you, loyal ATN readers.

To nominate your favorite game for the Rivalry Spotlight, tell us
one on-the-field and one off-the-field story about the heated clash
in question. The rivalries themselves are old, but ATN needs
something new, a fresh take. You were there. You heard it
first-hand. Your stories are key. (If you're a bad storyteller,
point me in the right direction, and I'll do the legwork.)

Pool C watch
Our good friend Ralph Turner has started the discussion on which
six teams will earn the at-large bids after the 25 automatic
qualifiers and the one Pool B team earn playoff spots.

It's early of course, and in many seasons teams play their way out
of this group. In some years, so many teams play their way out that
everybody who's picked up an additional loss ends up back in.

At the moment, Illinois Wesleyan (if it loses to North Central),
Redlands, the Trinity/Centre loser, the Wittenberg/Wabash loser and
McMurry look like viable candidates for the six spots. UW-Oshkosh
could push UW-Whitewater into the group this Saturday, but the
Titans with only two losses – to Mount Union and the Warhawks
– could create an unprecedented scenario where a two-loss
team could be one of the first at-large bids taken. Elsewhere,
Endicott and WNEC are headed for a showdown, and that’s
before the NEFC title game. Lewis & Clark or Pacific Lutheran
could cause issues by upsetting Linfield, and a team like Widener,
if it still has one loss on Nov. 12, could unexpectedly bump
Delaware Valley into Pool C.

There’s no way to project the six now, as there’s
always potential for unexpected change – such as
Baldwin-Wallace knocking Mount Union into Pool C, Linfield not
winning the NWC or St. John Fisher overtaking Salisbury for the
Empire 8 AQ – that would change the dynamics. In a week or
two, we might be able to play the “if the season ended
today” game, but not yet. But that does bring us to the
…

Showdown watch

I’ve compiled this handy, if not comprehensive, list of
games that will greatly impact conference titles. No point in
keeping it to myself.

In any given season, a dozen or so of our 239 teams finish the
regular season without a loss. But unless they win the Stagg Bowl
or are from the NESCAC, they don’t finish that way. So
perhaps now’s the time to appreciate the feat.

• Three are 5-0 (No. 5 Linfield, Centre and Lewis &
Clark) and three are 4-0 (No. 25 Hobart, Amherst and Trinity,
Conn.), for a total of 21 remaining unbeatens.

Winless watch

The flipside of the unbeaten watch is the teams that are deep
into October and haven’t yet experienced the thrill of
victory. Twenty-four teams are still waiting on the first win as
well as their first loss. Here’s a look at those teams, along
with their best opportunities for a win.

• At 0-7: Nichols, which has its best
chance on Nov. 5 against 1-5 MIT.

Along with Knox, there are three one-win teams in the MWC. Two
of them have earned their lone win by beating the Prarie Fire. An
Oct. 29 home game against Lake Forest is the best opportunity to
avoid 0-10.

Earlham is in trouble. The Quakers haven’t scored more
than 14 points in a game, and face Mt. St. Joseph (3-3), Franklin
(6-1) and Rose-Hulman (3-3).

• At 0-6: Eightteen teams are stuck here,
but eight of them play one another -- six on the final day of the
season -- and therefore can’t finish winless. On Oct. 29,
Puget Sound goes to Pacific. On Nov. 12, MacMurray goes to UMAC foe
Crown, the ECFC’s Anna Maria travels to Husson and Grove City
goes to Thiel in the PAC.

Kenyon is Hiram’s only win, but hosts 1-5 Ohio Wesleyan
Oct. 29.

Juniata has scored all but 13 of its 54 points in two losses;
they play at 1-5 McDaniel and 1-5 Moravian in back-to-back
weeks.

FDU-Florham has games against first-year Stevenson (1-5) and at
King’s (1-4) left in Weeks 9 and 10.

For Western Connecticut, this week’s game against
Brockport State is an opportunity, but the Golden Eagles might be
confident from getting their first win of the season, over
top-25-ranked Kean, last Saturday.

Wilmington’s season-ending game at Otterbein now appears
to be its only shot at avoiding a second consecutive 0-10, 0-9
year. Offense is an issue, with only 23 points scored in its past
four games.

Austin is struggling. Former leaguemate DePauw was
nobody’s whipping boy in the SCAC, but at 1-4 and traveling
from Indiana to Texas on Oct. 29, they represent the best chance at
a Kangaroos win.

Rockford might not be expected to win, but Nov. 12 at Maranatha
Baptist – which has lost four straight since a 2-0 start
– is their best shot.

Greensboro scored 21 points through four games, but has averaged
20 per the past two. They’ve got two shots, at Maryville at
Nov. 5 and against Methodist on Nov. 12. Both are 1-5.

I don’t like UW-River Falls’ chances of picking up a
win. Left on the schedule are 3-3 UW-Stout and 2-4 UW-La Crosse,
but the 31 points the Falcons gave up on Saturday against
UW-Stevens Point topped their previous best by seven.

Hamline has been shut out in five of six games. The Pipers have
965 yards of offense – 160.8 per game. And they’ve
played the beatable MIAC teams, as well as Macalester, already.
Concordia-Moorhead (5-2), St. Olaf (5-1), Bethel (5-1) and St.
John’s (2-4) left on the schedule. I’d be stunned if
Hamline didn’t finish 0-10.

• At 0-5: Pomona-Pitzer: The Sagehens play
at 1-5 Whittier on Oct. 29, and against 1-5 LaVerne on Nov. 5.

• At 0-4: In the NESCAC, Colby plays at
Tufts Nov. 5.

Awards watch
• The Gagliardi
Trophy will again be hosting all four finalists in Salem for
the presentation of the most prestigious award a D-III football
player can win. For the first time, the presentation will be on a
Wednesday evening. The Stagg Bowl, you might recall, is on Friday
night instead of Saturday this season.

• I’m not exactly sure what All-Star Football
Challenge is or what FRS, the folks who sponsor it do, but for
two weeks now they’ve nominated D-III players for an award
whose winners are announced on ESPN on Feb. 3.

Last week it was Montclair State running back Chris
D’Andrea, and after that, the organizers approached
D3football.com looking for promotion and future player suggestions.
Pat Coleman’s suggestion this week was pretty obvious: McMurry’s
Jake Mullin. The quarterback’s 614-yard passing day
didn’t break the D-III record of 730, but he did help the War
Hawks set an all-time total offense mark of 848 in the 60-16 win
against Texas Lutheran. You can vote for him or Texas
A&M’s Ryan Tannehill. I’m sure he had a good game,
but considering there are a gabillion Aggie fans who will vote for
him without even considering Mullin, D-III fans need not be
encouraged to vote Tannehill. You know what to do: vote here, via
Facebook.

• The Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year award now has a Coaches
Leaderboard, sortable by divison. Wittenberg’s Joe
Fincham (1240 votes) and Bethel’s Steve Johnson (1,198) are
far and away the leaders, with 610 being the third-highest total as
of Wednesday evening. I’m not sure the current top 10 is
reflective of the most impressive coaching jobs across D-III this
season, or just the 10 schools who are promoting the fan voting
best. But there’s plenty of time to get your school’s
coach recognized, and you can use the link above to get started.
Facebook, Twitter … it’s all there.

All-star game watch
• The Tazon de Estrellas could find itself with increased
interest from back here in the states, as the annual clash of D-III
stars with Mexican players has Sat. Dec. 17 all to itself. The game
usually coincides with the Stagg Bowl, but will play in the
“temple of pain” in Puebla, Mexico the day afterward
this season.

“The No. 1 thing I remember was how crazy the crowd was
and it being a bunch of college guys down in Mexico,” said
former Coe and current Buffalo Bills running back Fred Jackson of
the experience. “There is always going to be great
camaraderie with that."

• The D-III Senior
Classic is scheduled for early December in Salem again this
season. Looking at their preseason teams, I was amused to see Alex
Tanney, Levell Coppage and Mike Zweifel all on the North squad.
Geography could create a pretty loaded team, but then again, at
least one of them will probably be unavailable due to a playoff
game that day.

Games of the week

Pat Coleman, Ryan Tipps and I identify the games to watch among
the 100 or so each Saturday across the nation, providing three
distinct looks at what’s ahead in Triple
Take. This week’s we take a stab at which teams will do a
180 from last week, which two-loss teams are worth watching, which
top 25 teams will be upset and more.

Five Ways to Saturday

Follow Around the Nation …

• Throughout the week on Twitter. Follow @D3Keith. It’s a sporadic
stream of short-form minutiae, most of it D-III related. It’s
also the best way to directly converse with the column’s
author.

• On Around the
Nation’s Post Patterns thread, at the top of the General
Football board. That’s the next best place to ask a question
about a topic raised in the column, or continue a discussion
unrelated to this week’s ATN.

• Mondays, Pat Coleman and I wrap up the week that was in
our podcast. Download
from iTunes or listen to it in the Daily Dose’s media
player.

On Saturdays, The Daily Dose features a running game day thread
and live chat, for real-time reactions from across the country.

The press box

• Crowd sourcing: Looking for your rivalry
stories, as mentioned above. Also thinking about how I should
approach future columns on transfers into D-III (know any good
examples?) and the limitations that make D-III as diverse as it is.
Each schools has its own set of unique challenges to overcome.
Besides roster limits, academic restrictions, cost limitations and
the specific pools of student-athletes certain schools look to draw
from, are there any I’ve missed?